Marguerite Yourcenar

Marguerite Yourcenar (born June 8, 1903, Brussels, Belgium—died December 17, 1987, Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine, U.S.) was a novelist, essayist, and short-story writer who became the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française (French Academy), an exclusive literary institution with a membership limited to 40. Crayencour was educated at home in French Flanders and spent much of her early life traveling with her father. She began writing as a teenager and...